Scientists at a United Nations conference in Spain on Friday called for more research into the dramatic rise in ocean temperatures and warned it could lead to devastating consequences.

“Changes are happening so fast that we cannot keep up with their consequences,” Vidar Helgesen, secretary general of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, told AFP on the sidelines of the three-day Decade of the Ocean conference in Barcelona. said.

“This requires much greater real-time monitoring and research efforts, and much closer collaboration between science and policy,” he said, adding that “tackling ocean warming is an urgent issue.”

The meeting, which ended Friday, brought together nearly 1,500 scientists and representatives of government and environmental organizations to discuss ocean conservation.

The average sea surface temperature set a new record for March at just over 21 degrees Celsius, the European Union’s climate watchdog Copernicus said on Tuesday.

Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and have kept the Earth’s surface habitable by absorbing 90 percent of the excess heat produced by human-caused carbon pollution since the dawn of the industrial age.

Has future warming been underestimated?

“The heat capacity of the ocean is much higher than the atmosphere; “It absorbs a lot more heat, but it can’t absorb it indefinitely,” said researcher Cristina González Aro of the Barcelona Institute of Marine Sciences.

Warmer oceans mean more moisture in the atmosphere, leading to increasingly unstable weather conditions such as strong winds and heavy rains, threatening marine ecosystems that produce almost half of the oxygen we breathe. One of the goals of the Barcelona meeting was to expand our knowledge of ocean warming and unravel its effects in order to limit them.

According to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), more than 90 percent of the world’s oceans will experience heat waves in 2023, with direct impacts on climate and ecosystems worldwide, even those far from the oceans.

Speaking at the conference, expert Jean-Pierre Gattuso from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) said: “We are on a path that has scientists wondering whether we are underestimating future global warming.” said.

But scientists have warned that difficulties in implementing major environmental agreements aimed at limiting global warming, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, leave no room for optimism.

“Many of us are a little disappointed that the implementation of the Paris Agreement has been so slow, so difficult and so painful, despite the scientific evidence on climate change and its impacts,” Gattuso said. said.

But scientists noted some positive signs, such as the adoption by UN member states last year after 15 years of negotiations of a historic treaty aimed at protecting the oceans and repairing damage to the fragile marine environment caused by pollution, overfishing and other causes. human activities.

“Every tenth of a degree counts, every year earned counts, and it’s never too late. “We absolutely must not lose courage,” Gattuso said.